JACK-O-LANTERN ART AT THE HOUSE OF BEER

When I was a boy living in England we carved turnips and hung them in the trees.  We called it bonfire night but I guess it was more formally Guy Fawkes day.   All Saints day,  Halloween,  whatever it's called the phenomenon is larger than life in many places.
Anyway last night at the world's best brewery, Dix on Beatty St., many pumpkins were sacrificed at the altar of vegetable art.
This is my blog so this is my jack-o-lantern. 
The strange thing about this stuff is that although the orange squash welcomes fine art sculptures.....simple shapes and unrefined compositions also look great.  It's a great form of folk art.

Some people were done in ten minutes but others took a long time to express themselves.

SHOULD I BUY A DIESEL CAR OR DRIVE THE MAIN ROAD IN A GAS BURNER?

Driving the road less traveled is where we are going with this comparison. If you buy a car with a diesel engine you are immediately going to join a very small group. So unless you are willing to make an alternative fashion statement with your car you should just buy a gas burner and drive on.

Diesel cars have never been popular in North America. Today, in North America, less than three percent of all the passenger cars on the road are diesels.   There's more than one reason for this and they are all good ones! The purpose of this article is not to prove that diesel cars are a better choice than a gas burning car. I'm going to come clean right now and let my new readers know that I'm an alternative guy.

I run Linux on my computers while Microsoft controls around 90% of the world's computers, I drink craft brewed real ale while 95% of the world drinks industrial lager.....And I drive a diesel Mercedes on the road with all my neighbours in their gas burning cars happily roaring along beside me.

But what fun is this? This forum is where I rant! What kind of rant doesn't rant? Am I just going to write a dry article that lays out a few facts and says there you go, have fun with your gas burning ,V6, silver minivan! I have to take a position! Alright, Alright. Diesels are better....uh... slightly and depending on where you live.

So, if so few of my good Canadian neighbours are driving diesel cars, why is it that virtually all commercial trucks are diesels and nearly half of all European cars are diesels?

Here's the short answer. Diesel engines get better fuel economy.

Is that it? 

Well sort of. As is the case with most things in life, nothing is what is seems.

What did you say? What's the long answer? Okay, you asked for it.

Diesel engines get better fuel economy because the nature of their compression ignition generates more power with less fuel and less refined fuel that costs less. That's it. Period, end of story.....Well sort of.

So if diesels use less and cheaper fuel why doesn't everyone buy one?

Well because they are more expensive to buy.

Oh.

But diesels are cheaper to maintain aren't they?

Well they can be if the owner maintains his diesel car religiously. But if you treat your diesel car the way most people treat their gas burning cars, repairs will occur that are more expensive than would be the case with a gasoline engine. Also since the repairs will occur later in the life of the machine, the decision of whether or not to spend lots of money on an old car becomes a difficult one. Especially since the owner paid more for the car to begin with. And people mostly don't want old cars. They don't want to spend thousands on their old cars, they want to buy new ones and change them after a while, not keep them for a lifetime. And that's where the car industry directs its advertising, to the fashion, lifestyle appeal and the status symbol of driving a late model car. On the other hand, fleet trucks get regular maintenance, especially oil changes. With top notch maintenance diesel engines last a long, long time. I mean a really long time...decades! So the businesses that operate the fleets can wring the last dollar out of their trucks. People generally don't want to do this and that, in a nutshell, is why virtually all commercial trucks are diesel and almost no private passenger cars are diesels. But people who are using their cars to commute long distances and have good maintenance habits and who aren't interested in buying new cars can save a lot of money with a diesel car.  

But what about emissions? Don't diesel cars smoke a lot and aren't they noisy?

First of all, yes, they are noisier than gasoline cars because the high compression required to burn diesel oil generates noisy explosions in the engine. However insulating the engine compartment can mask this noise well. Car makers go to more or less effort in this area. Mercedes cars are very quiet while tractors are loud, but the engines essentially generate the same amount of noise.

Now, about emissions. With low sulfur diesel fuel and good maintenance, high quality diesel engines don't smoke. But old engines with worn cylinders and glow plugs will smoke. Especially when cold and when accelerating. Which is why top notch maintenance is required for diesels. But while diesel smoke is what ordinary people see and therefore think is pollution, as usual, nothing is what it seems.

Even a worn and smoky, old diesel will not emit carbon monoxide at all, will emit less carbon dioxide, and only very slightly more nitrogen oxide than a similar sized gasoline engine. Diesel smoke is unburned fuel, particulate matter. It's ugly but not particularly (sorry) harmful.

And now that carbon dioxide, a naturally occurring gas, is being viewed as a pollutant, the diesel always wins this race simply because diesels burn less fuel therefore they emit less carbon dioxide. So, if everyone drove a diesel car, the world would cut carbon emissions from cars by about twenty percent...but there'd be more smoke around.

Oh.

Incongruously, with all of the green rhetoric being emitted into the air today, the misunderstood diesel car remains marginalized in the North American car market ,especially in the USA. Largely because people and their politicians continue with the mindset that diesels pollute more than gas burning cars. Now there's a bit of a buzz on with Volkswagen especially soapboxing about its new “clean diesels” as if there's some big revolution going on in diesel technology. Well the new technology is the urea additive that breaks down nitrogen oxide emissions and yes that does lower emissions slightly. And the direct fuel injection system helps a little, and the higher compression helps along with the precision of computer technology, but the real improvement isn't in the car engine at all...it's at the pump! Yes! It's ultra low sulfur diesel fuel that has lowered emissions for all diesels. Car makers didn't take the biggest step in improving fuel emissions, governments did by legislating that all fuel sold has to have less sulfur than was the case in decades gone by.

Mercedes still makes and sells diesel cars in North America and wades its way through the morass of red tape to get to the consumer who's willing to spend seventy-five thousand plus for a car. Currently, in Canada, the only diesel passenger car available for less than the fabulous Mercedes machines are Volkswagens .  Recently, for two years running, THE ONLY NEW, DIESEL,  PASSENGER CAR AVAILABLE IN CANADA WAS THE MERCEDES BENZ SEDAN! The exception was the diesel powered  Smart Car (Mercedes) which is well worth discussing but let's not go off on a tangent here!
Why don't the other car makers sell diesel cars?
The answer is they do! Virtually all the other car makers sell diesels in world markets, but not in North America. There are several reasons for this. The main one is that emission standards are different in North America than elsewhere. Politics are what mainly keeps the other automakers like Honda, Toyota, BMW and everyone else from offering diesel cars for sale in North America...read USA. Emission control standards are set by the American Fed, but the they are driven (sorry) by politicians and bureaucrats in California.  The attitude in California it seems is that nitrogen oxides and particulates are more harmful than carbon dioxide.  Because the standards for those emissions has been set so high that no car maker in the world can meet them at a reasonable price so they don't bother to sell diesels in the USA. (Mercedes cars are great and available and they meet the standards but the price isn't reasonable) So here my friends is the bizarre result of not allowing diesel cars for sale in the USA.  Firstly, The USA in its entirety, has missed the chance to reduce its passenger car related, carbon footprint by more than twenty percent by setting the emission standards in California TOO HIGH!. Plus, because the Canadian car market is comparatively small, since no one imports diesel cars to the USA, Canada doesn't get any either!....That's right! Since the USA isn't gettin' any, neither are we.   Life is absurd after all.
The second reason is the price of fuel. Fuel is relatively inexpensive in the USA and even in Canada. In areas where fuel is very expensive, because it's heavily taxed or just difficult to obtain, diesel cars thrive.

Where diesel cars are common, diesel mechanics are common so getting your diesel car fixed is easier. If you drive a diesel car in North America you will have to go to some trouble to find a competent diesel mechanic. Easily obtaining good maintenance and parts is important and this is difficult in North America, especially in the USA.

You don't have to buy a new diesel car to have a clean burning diesel.. A nice used Mercedes diesel however can be had for somewhere between three and nine thousand dollars depending on the age and condition of course. 2.5 lt. turbo diesels and 3.0 diesels are around and so are the economical Volkswagen Jettas Golfs and a few Beetles. All are excellent cars although the Mercedes cars are much more luxurious

Virtually all diesel cars on the road are old Mercedes and Volkswagen cars. They are all extraordinary cars and outlast their gas burning relatives by years...even decades.
But are diesel burning cars made differently than other cars or is it just the engine?
The short answer is that it's just the heavily built, precision made engine, but the long answer as we've seen is much more complicated. It involves who buys and drives new and used diesel cars, who makes them, and which governments allow them to be sold in which jurisdictions.

So should I buy a diesel car?

Well, if you're an alternative type like me, yes, you'll never look back. You'll find a nice, old, European mechanic who knows everything about your 1983 Mercedes, you'll go to truck stops for fuel.

You'll consider burning fryer oil in your car..( a subject for another rant). Some of your friends will think you're weird and others will admire your beautiful diesel Mercedes.